Final Thoughts and Observations on Louisville vs. UCF

The Cardinals handed the Knights their first loss at home since 2020.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Coming off of their disappointing season-opener at Syracuse, Louisville was able to bounce right back, rallying to take down UCF on the road.

Before we close the book on the game and transition to the home opener vs. Florida State, I wanted to provide some closing thoughts and observations from the game:

• First of all, what a way to respond after such a lackluster way to begin the season. I'm not one to try and speak in absolutes after just one game of the season, but man, it was incredibly hard to be optimistic about Louisville in any regard. Offense, defense, special teams, overall effort and energy, execution from players and coached, it all looked bad against Syracuse. Sure, Louisville did not play a perfect game against UCF, but they improved in every one of the aforementioned facets in various degrees, especially on defense.
• Before I breakdown either side of the line of scrimmage, it's important to highlight that the team as a whole - both players and coaches - played a lot more juice against the Knights. Against Syracuse, there didn't seem to be any fire or passion from the Cardinals. But against UCF, not only did they actually act like they wanted to be there, but energy levels - particularly on defense - was vastly improved. Even Scott Satterfield, who has been heavily criticized by the fanbase for his chill demeanor, showed a little bit of fire when he lost his mind at the second quarter offsides call when UCF had the ball around midfield on 4th and 1.
• Let's talk about the defense first, because they were the star of the show. It was a night-and-day difference from their abysmal showing against the Orange. Were they perfect? No. But anytime you put up ten consecutive stops against a prolific offensive team such as UCF, you clearly did something right. The tackling was much better, the players played with their hair on fire in the second through fourth quarters, and the coaches actually made adjustments (more on that in a bit). Not only that, they took a massive step forward in shaking arguably the biggest narrative from last season in that they couldn't finish games. They produced not one, but two massive stops when the UCF offense appeared to get things rolling after being dormant through most of the game. To play devil's advocate, they did get a massive boost from the amount of penalties that UCF committed, even to the point where two touchdowns were wiped. Still, this was a much, much, better performance that can absolutely be the foundation for the rest of the season.
• Before I start highlighting players, defensive coordinator Bryan Brown deserves a shoutout, which is not something I thought I would type following the Syracuse game. Utilizing their zone read scheme, UCF was getting a ton of early offensive success, putting up 14 points on their first two drives. After they surrendered both touchdowns to the same goal line wildcat formation play to Isaiah Bowser, I wasn't sure if the coaching staff was going to make any sort of adjustments at all in this game. But not only did they make adjustments, they made the right ones. Both Brown and Satterfield said after the game that they chose to shift their pressure from the right of the middle to the edges in a better effort to contain not only the zone read running scheme, but QB John Rhys Plumlee himself after he had some big early ground gains. UCF had zero answers for this adjustment, and credit to Louisville's staff for scheming up the perfect response.
• Not only did the defensive coaches make the right adjustments, their players rose to the occasion and executed their assignments extremely well. This wasn't a game where a single player was a one-man wrecking crew, this was a game where multiple defensive players had great games. The front seven in particular had several guys stand out. YaYa Diaby looked particularly disruptive, and had a huge tackle late in the third quarter on Plumlee that prevented him from scrambling for a first down. Ramon Puryear, MoMo Sanogo and Dorian Jones also did a great job at getting in the backfield and putting the pressure on Plumlee.
• Even with the success that the front seven had with generating pressure, some players in this area of the field are having slow starts to season. Monty Montgomery had a horrible game against Syracuse and looked undisciplined in the first half against UCF before having a better second half, Yasir Abdullah's early impact hasn't been as dominant as expected (although offenses are accounting for his presence with an abundance of double teams), and Dezmond Tell will absolutely have to step up with Jermayne Lole out for the year. The schedule only gets harder from here on out, so the D-line and linebackers will need to have a more complete performance.
• The secondary also looked much better against UCF. Sure, Plumlee isn't exactly Tom Brady, and the front seven aided them greatly by getting a lot more pressure on him, but they stepped up. On top of the coaching adjustments to bring pressure off the edges, another adjustment was for the defensive back to play tighter coverage. This worked incredibly well with the decision to bring more pressure, as Plumlee struggled to find open receiver in the second half. Kenderick Duncan, Josh Minkins and Quincy Riley shined in particular. Duncan set a career high in tackles (13), while both Minkins and Riley each has two pass breakups. If we're being honest, both of Riley's PBU's should have been easy interceptions, but I digress. While he did get burned some, Jarvis Brownlee Jr. made arguably the play of the game when he snagged that fourth quarter interception in the back of the end zone. Were they perfect? No, but it's a much better showing than they had the week before.
• Now let's move onto to the offense. First, it's important to acknowledge that they did look much more cohesive than they did against Syracuse. Of course, it's not hard to do that after how incredibly disjointed Louisville looked on that side of the ball against the Orange. That being said, it still has some kinks to work out, both with players and coaches. The run game did have more success against UCF than it did against Syracuse, but man, how many times is Satterfield going to run it on 2nd or 3rd and long? At least on defense, you can make an argument that you can start to see Wes McGriff's fingerprints on the scheme. On offense, it seems like we're still searching for Lance Taylor's input on offense.
• While the schematic approach is still in question, Satterfield made a wise decision to actually utilize quarterback Malik Cunningham in a manner that makes the offense successful. Yes, you want him to be as refined of a passer as possible. But his legs are a deadly weapon. Use them.
• Speaking of Cunningham... he looked much better in this game. It was not blatantly obvious that he was keying on Tyler Hudson all game long, and he actually did a good job spreading the ball out. Not to mention that he's just as good as ever when it comes to designed runs. That being said, he still had several throws that were a touch offline or overthrown, and he'll have to clean those up moving forward.
• It's hard to fault the pass catchers for not securing more balls whenever it was, more often than not, Cunningham's fault that they weren't caught. There were only a couple outright drops in the game, one by Ahmari Huggins-Bruce and another by Dee Wiggins, so nothing particularly alarming yet. Other than that, the receivers and tight ends did their job.
• While Tiyon Evans did have another solid game running the ball, it seemed like there were times where he struggled to hit the holes. I get that he secured the starting position, but Jalen Mitchell probably deserved more than just three carries. Same for Jawhar Jordan. We still haven't seen Trevion Cooley at all through two games, which in my opinion, is borderline inexcusable given the star potential he flashed last year.
• By no means am I going to sound the alarm yet, but it is a bit concerning that the offensive line hasn't been as dominating as they were billed over the offseason. They haven't been terrible, per se, but they certainly haven't been elite. Both the run blocking and the pass protection have been above average at best, with the later being better than the former. Trevor Reid has had moments where he has gotten absolutely whipped, and Caleb Chandler hasn't looked like his All-American form yet.
• I'll close with this thought: Many Louisville fans were ready to throw in the towel after that first game, and even I had real doubts that the Cardinals could bounce back. This win over a good UCF team was a fantastic first step into showing that the Syracuse abomination was merely an outlier. They have a huge opportunity this weekend against Florida State. If they can carry over that momentum and produce a win against the Seminoles, this team can still have a successful season.

(Photo via Mike Watters - USA TODAY Sports)

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